VA Reminds Thief How Valuable Stolen Data Is

from the perhaps-not-the-best-plan dept

Earlier this week, we noted that the Department of Veterans Affairs seemed to be hoping that whoever stole a laptop and hard-drive with lots of veterans' private info was too stupid to know what they had stolen. However, it seems they're doing their very best to make sure everyone realizes it's quite valuable. They've now put up a $50,000 reward for any info leading to the recovery of the data. Of course, should the thief hear about this, then what's to stop him (or her) from simply copying the data and then figuring out a way to return the laptop and get the $50,000? Not that security through obscurity was likely to work in this case, but it seems sort of odd that they were so adamant that thief likely had no idea how valuable the data was -- and then put a price on it and blasted it all over the news.